


Uprooted

by botanicalTJ, thermodynamic (euphoriaspill)



Category: The Outsiders - S. E. Hinton
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Brother-Sister Relationships, Brothers, Crimes & Criminals, Gangs, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Native American Character(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:22:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24449551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/botanicalTJ/pseuds/botanicalTJ, https://archiveofourown.org/users/euphoriaspill/pseuds/thermodynamic
Summary: AU— Ponyboy grows up as a Shepard, and Curly grows up as a Curtis. But no matter how you spin it, older brothers are still a pain.
Kudos: 32





	1. Chapter 1

Ponyboy moved into the attic around this time last year. There's a persistent mouse running around he can't quite seem to trap, it's hot in the summer and cold in the winter, and he barely has enough space for his bed and dresser, but the further he's away from the rest of his family, the better.

Unfortunately, no set of stairs can keep Tim out for long— he flings the door open without knocking, more of his usual, and Pony resists the urge to make a run for it. "You really think I'll always be around to fight your battles for you, huh." It's not a question; Tim never feels the need to ask them. "How many fucking times I got to tell you not to walk home clutchin' them books to your chest, dipshit, 'less you want to get jumped. Do you even listen when I talk, or do the words just go in and out your empty skull."

Tim's as cold as a rattlesnake and twice as mean, got eyes like the night sky in winter that punch right through him. He didn't need that scar across his face to look menacing, but it helps as he leans forward and grabs Pony's chin, fingers like calipers. His knuckles are bruised, a scrape forming on the left middle one. "Don't even get me started on how you left your blade at home. I've met six-year-olds on this side of the tracks with more street smarts than you."

"How come you never go off on Angel?" he croaks. "Like you always do on me?"

"'Cause Angel's got a brain in her head, that's why," he says, and gives Pony a quick slap upside his. "She should've been born the boy, and you the girl. God knows she'd be more useful in the gang than you."

Angela's a hell of a lot more trouble than Ponyboy could ever hope to be; the cashier at the liquor store's got a crush on her and lets her buy without an ID, he can't count the amount of times he's seen her on some older guy's arm down at the Ribbon, and ever since she turned fifteen, she's started wearing skirts that could easily be mistaken for underwear. It doesn't matter, Tim's as indulgent with her as a grandad, takes her side no matter what the fight is; he suspects it's because she's his full sister, not a half-brother he never wanted to be left holding the bag for, but that's a thought he doesn't have the courage to voice. "You done yet?" is what he asks, to which Tim replies with another slap. "You didn't used to be some dumbass, back when you was in school, either."

That was the wrong move; a cord of muscle pulses in Tim's jaw, hard and set like the rest of him is. One of his teachers called Mom when he was in eighth grade, made some noise about him testing into private high school, but she was getting real sick that year, more and more hooked on her pills, and so Tim started recruiting for his gang the next. "You're damn right, I wasn't enough of a dumbass back then to act like a grind, usin' big words and stickin' my nose in a book where people could see me. Then you're surprised you ain't got no friends."

That's going a little far even by Tim's standards, digging too personal; Ponyboy feels tears gathering along his bottom lash line, and though he blinks them away, he wonders if Tim saw his eyes' glassiness first. "You hurt?" he asks, roughly tilts his chin up to reveal the scrape along the underside of his jaw, where they dragged his face across the concrete. Tim wouldn't know how to be gentle if he tried. "They get you anywhere else?"

"My ribs, I think," and he squawks as Tim pulls his t-shirt off over his head. "Tim, what the hell—"

"We used to share a room, like I ain't seen your scrawny lil' chest before." Ponyboy shivers, goosebumps forming on his upper arms, as Tim prods the cluster of purple and blue bruises. "They don't seem broken, you'll live." Then he unfurls his crumpled shirt and examines it, scowls, and scrubs his knuckles hard along the top of Ponyboy's head— " _The Yardbirds 1965_ , this is mine, ain't it?" He stalks out with it clutched in his fist, muttering under his breath about little brats with no sense and no appreciation of private property. Ponyboy waits until his footsteps are out of earshot to flop backwards on the bed and groan, an arm thrown over his eyes.

He sits up gingerly after a second, finds it hard to breathe even if _he'll live_ , and reaches for the tube of arnica cream he keeps under his mattress. He doesn't get jumped all that often, despite being a known pansy— his brother's reputation forms an umbrella of protection around him, everyone's aware that messing with him will bring the wrath of Tim Shepard down on your ass, the amount of lockers he fished him out of when they were at the same elementary school. Too bad that once he's done, he turns the full force of that anger right back on Ponyboy. He still cringes at the memory of some of their boxing lessons.

It won't matter in a few years, his life's not always going to be ruled by the whims of the Neanderthals that call him a fag and throw him around. All he has to do is keep his head down, get good grades and a top SAT score, and maybe he can earn a scholarship. Might be easier if he could walk down the street with his books in peace, or study without having to listen to his mom and stepdad throwing plates downstairs, or go out for the track team instead of having to tag walls for his brother's gang every day after school, but he's getting there, even if he's limping to the finish line. Then he'll be out of here like a bat out of hell, and he cradles the hope to his chest and tries to warm it up, the way he used to with Tim's cold smiles— Tim, who never misses a chance to remind him, and Angela often enough too, that the only reason he's still stuck in this house is to look after their sorry asses. He'll go to California or New York, somewhere with an ounce of artistic sensibility, at least somewhere people listen to better tunes than Merle Haggard and Loretta Lynn.

Unlike Tim, who's probably going to die in jail, or turn out the same as most of their cousins, a washed-up old hood fixing rodeo races or card games just to get by. The thought doesn't bring him any satisfaction, even when he blares his Bob Dylan record at top volume, loud enough to reach downstairs.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warnings// none

“I mean, what the hell were you even thinking? Running around with a group like that?” Darry's pacing, can’t even stand to look at the one he's yelling at. The youngest of the brothers can see flecks of saliva fly from his lips as he spits the words like something nasty from his throat. The kid would’ve looked down, but it would be a sure way to get his ass handed to him. So instead, he clenches his fists in his lap, folding and unfolding his fingers one by one. He hasn’t seen Darry this mad, ever.

Suddenly, Darry turns and looks his brother right in the face. His eyes are no longer cool, emotionless; their ocean had turned to fire. His jaw is clenched, probably holding back the full extent of his anger. Wouldn’t look very good for that cop to drop the boy off at the house only to come back later for a noise complaint. “So who were they?” he demands, getting madder the longer his questions went unanswered. He could scare somebody half to death looking at ‘em like that. “Kids across the track? Some of Shepard’s outfit? You better start talkin’, Curly, or I’m fixin’ to make you regret the day you were born.”

Curly exhales sharply, nostrils flaring. He wants to get up off the sofa, mutter something about having school tomorrow and slink off to his room. But that's another excuse for Darry to keep him there for longer, as if he hasn't already been blowing his lid since Curly showed up at the front door, an hour past curfew with a cop holding him by the am. He can still feel the pig's fat fingers squeezing the fleshy part of his bicep, like he's some lowlife scum worth less than the mud on the officer's boots. That cop and all the rest of 'em can eat shit, as far as Curly's concerned. 

"Don't give me that look, boy." Darry snaps him out of it once again, out of his little rage-filled fantasies about his life and everyone who thinks they're above him. He must've been pulling a face about it, but he doesn't have time to correct his brother before Darry's speaking again. "Comin' home late, running around with those damn hoods doing god knows what, and now I have to answer to the cops about why my little brother isn't in this house doing his homework and getting a good night's sleep." Darry pauses to take a breath, and Curly briefly considers the irony that his brother is the one keeping him from getting a good night's sleep right now, with how long they've been having this one-sided conversation. But Darry seems to be waiting for a response now, the way he's glaring, so Curly opens his mouth before he subjects himself to another half hour of this shit. 

"Are you done playing tyrant?" is the first thing to leave his mouth, and it earns him a slap upside the head. It doesn't hurt, but it makes Curly grit his teeth and look down before he says something he regrets further.

"Are you done sitting there like your mouth's glued shut?" Darry counters, and it's a lame response but Curly isn't itching to get smacked harder. He huffs instead and looks his oldest brother in the eye, a power move that always works on teachers and rarely works on Darry.

"What do you want me to say, Darry?" Curly swallows back the poison on his tongue and forces his voice to stay even. He's not scared of Darry's eye contact, not like everyone else in the world seems to be. His brother has brawn and brains but doesn't have a fire lit under him like Curly does. "I won't do it again? I'll sit at home and read a book because the big bad state's out to get us? It's not like we blew up a cop car, we were just-"

"See, that's your problem, you don't take anything seriously." Darry's back to shouting and it's nothing Curly hasn't heard a million times from every authority figure that's known him at all the past six months. "You think I'd work my ass off every goddamn day and night for you and Soda if I didn't have to? If they wouldn't snatch you two up in a hot second?" 

"Nobody's forcing you," Curly spits, and now he's angry and doesn't give a damn about keeping it out of his voice. "None of us asked for this, Darry, so I'm sorry your life is _so hard_ getting to tell us off for every little thing. I don't see you yelling at Soda so much, what with him dropping out. Least I ain't playing up every girl in the whole school."

"All I ask is for you to put in some effort, but I guess that's too much to ask from someone who thinks he's above the rules." Darry crosses the living room and checks to make sure the door is unlocked, locks it and unlocks it again just in case. A sign that he was about to turn in for bed. Curly stands from the couch, stretching his legs where they'd fallen asleep from sitting there so long, but goes still when his brother turns back to face him again. "I want you home right after school, I _mean_ it," Darry says low in his throat, a near growl. "And do your homework before you go to sleep, since you wanna spend all your time breaking into empty sheds."

"Never thought of you as some kind of saint, Darry," Curly mutters, resisting the urge to knock shoulders with his brother as he passes him on the way to the hall. "Oughta put your picture up on the mantle, right next to the Head of Christ." 

As he slips into his room, he can hear Darry grumbling that he's "damn lucky the cops dropped the charges," and he shuts the door so he doesn't have to listen to another word of it. His brother likes to talk just to hear his own voice these days. 

The room is dark, and he figures that Soda's asleep in his own bed, but of course he isn't. Darry probably woke the whole neighborhood at the rate he was going. "You alright?" Soda asks groggily, pushing himself up on an elbow. Curly gives a short nod, then hums in affirmation because it's dark and he's walking to his own bed too fast for his brother to see him.

"Better now that he shut up," Curly mutters as he strips down to boxer shorts, sliding under the covers. He sure as hell isn't doing his homework at one in the morning, not when he has to be up at seven. His voice is low, in case Darry can somehow hear him through the walls. With his luck, he can. "Sorry about the noise. He wouldn't let me leave."

"Nah, 'ts alright," Soda mumbles, followed by the rustle of bedclothes as he lays back down on the other side of the room. "You're gonna turn his whole head grey if you ain't careful, though."

"He'd look better," Curly snorts, yanking the covers up higher. It's cold in their room, matches the outside since running the heat is too expensive nowadays. "I'm fine. Go to sleep."

"Sure." His brother goes silent, and his breathing evens out just a minute later. Curly stares up at the ceiling, though, because the adrenaline is still coursing through him and it's too much for him to fall asleep on. The house is quiet, Darry probably went to bed, probably has work in the morning just like he always does. Curly would feel bad about keeping him up so late if Darry hadn't tore into him about it. It's not his fault, not any of their faults that things are so rough nowadays, so he doesn't deserve to get the brunt of the frustration over it. Curly's just a kid, after all, he's meant to be out having a life, not keeping his family together. Like they'd separate them anyways. He's just a kid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> reviews welcome :)
> 
> ~ teddy


End file.
